C. AURELIUS, a distinguished Roman general, who, during his consulate in B.C. 252, defeated the united forces of the Carthaginians and Sicilians in Sicily. He was celebrated for the severity of his discipline, and on one occasion scourged and degraded into the ranks a near relative of his own, through whose carelessness a part of the camp had been set on fire. On his return to Rome he was honoured with a triumph for his victory over the Carthaginians. In B.C. 248, he was a second time appointed consul. The time and manner of his death are unknown.

Many other members of this family held high offices in the Roman republic; the most remarkable of whom were C. Aurelius, who held the consulship B.C. 75, and enjoyed a high reputation as an orator; and his brother Lucius, who in his praetorship, B.C. 70, carried the celebrated lex Aurelia judiciaria, by which the senators were deprived of their exclusive right of acting as judges, and were only allowed to exercise it along with the equites and the tribuni aerarii.